Barnet Council plan to have a huge rail yard on the land behind Lidl, opposite the Cricklewood Bus Depot, at 400 Edgware Road. Planning permission has been applied for.
The land is owned by National Rail, and the freight company DB Cargo has a 125-year lease, due to expire in 2121. Their ambition is to make Cricklewood one of just three rail freight super-hubs in London, according to evidence given to a House of Lords transport select committee.
Freight trains will bring aggregate and other building materials to the yard at night. This will be offloaded and moved to storage areas. During the day lorries will deliver it to building sites all over London. The spoil from building sites will also be brought in by lorry and taken away by train.
The site footprint is approximately four times the size of Donoghues, and the application refers to an average of 452, rising to 800 HGVs per day. The site would operate Monday-Friday 7am to 7pm and on Saturday 7am to 2pm.
Local residents have raised enough environmental objections for the planning committee to delay a decision on a smaller temporary operation on the site; but the council posted the application for the permanent site the very next morning.
The main worries are:
- volume of traffic in an already congested and highly polluted area. Barnet has designated the A5 from Staples Corner to Cricklewood Lane as a focus area in need of air quality improvement. This will make it worse!
- effect of more HGVs on narrow roads such as Cricklewood Lane and Walm Lane, side roads and bus routes
- proximity of dirty industry to a conservation area, schools, the bus depot, supermarket, new flats at Fellows Square, housing in Brent
- pollution from irritant dust from the aggregate (aggregate is sand, gravel, crushed stone and rubble from demolitions, and so forth)
- noise of the operation and operating hours
- history of poor enforcement when regulations are broken
- possible effect on houses of vibration from heavy trains and lorries (the nearest houses are 19th-century, many others in the area are also 100 years old or more)
- possible effect on local water table
- general blight on residential areas.
Click here for the planning application; its reference number is 17/5761/EIA. You can add your comments and objections online there, if you cannot access the portal, please email Chloe Tomson, Barnet’s planning officer, with your objections Chloe.Thomson@barnet.gov.uk. The full site name is “Cricklewood Railway Yard, the land at rear of 400 Edgware Road NW2 6ND”.
You could also copy local councillors in. Council elections are in May.
Barnet – Childs Hill ward
cllr.p.zinkin@barnet.gov.uk
cllr.j.cohen@barnet.gov.uk
cllr.c.ryde@barnet.gov.uk
Barnet – Golders Green ward
cllr.m.cohen@barnet.gov.uk
cllr.d.cohen@barnet.gov.uk
cllr.r.thompstone@barnet.gov.uk
Brent – Dollis Hill ward
cllr.parvez.ahmed@brent.gov.uk
cllr.liz.dixon@brent.gov.uk
cllr.arshad.mahmood@brent.gov.uk
Brent – Mapesbury ward
cllr.helen.carr@brent.gov.uk
cllr.lia.colacicco@brent.gov.uk
cllr.ahmad.shahzad@brent.gov.uk
Camden – Fortune Green ward
richard.olszewski@camden.gov.uk
flick.rea@camden.gov.uk
lorna.russell@camden.gov.uk
Artists impression of the proposed hub
DB Cargo’s road/rail facility at Bow (Google satellite image)
I oppose this planning application. Living on Oxgate Gardens is already a nightmare traffic wise and the amount of dust and pollution has increased dramatically
I oppose to this planning as it will bring more HGV to already congested area and more pullotion for residents .
I am in opposition to this development. It will bring more HGV vehicles into an already congested and polluted area. There will be dust and noise to contend with as well.
Does anyone know when the deadline for submitting comments via the Barnet website is? I can’t find that information.
Hi Sarah, it’s 18 October.
Just to note, this is a community newsletter. Please follow the link above to object on Barnet’s website. Barnet Planing will not consider objections made on this page.
Quite right. I’ve made it a bit clearer and added the deadline. Thanks!
I am in opposition to this development. It will bring more trafficking into an already congested and polluted area.
I fully support this application. Cricklewood has long been an industrial area and operated alongside residents without undue strife or hardship. This will bring much needed employment opportunities. Some of the objections are nonsense such as vibration damage to properties. The housing behind the Beacon bingo has remained undamaged for decades.
Cricklewood hasn’t been an industrial area for a long time. Smiths Industries went in 1978, long after Rolls Razor, Smiths Crisps, Bentley, Handley Page and the rest had gone. There’s houses where Allied Dairies and Stoll Studios stood, offices and new blocks of flats along the Edgware Road, and where there were railway sidings, behind Beacon Bingo, there’s a B&Q and a carpark that drivers cut through to avoid the traffic lights. The area’s not as you remember it and this development would blight it.
I have written to oppose this due to the traffic and pollution and impact on quality of life in this area. The traffic will lead to more vehicles using the back residential streets – if they close those off due to traffic calming – it will just create more pollution as cars slow down on the main roads. The roads in the area are already in dreadful condition – more traffic will make them worse. No nO NO! People need to pay attention to this one!
The lack of due consideration to the impact on local residents,roads,air pollution, noise and health endangerment from the heavy vehicles is astounding….instead of creating green spaces and play areas the emphasis on business development is taking over all of North West London …It is a scandal that the voice of the people is ignored..the council should be held responsible and made to rethink this planning application…
I am very concerned at the implications of such developments, to health, noise, pollution and congrstion.
These plans need to be reconsidered.
No.
Just seen the news about this proposal in The Kilburn Times. I’m a Mapesbury resident and wondered whether NW2 residents association has been in touch with MAPRA. I’m sure that many Mapesbury residents would be concerned about the planning application. Living in Brent, I wasn’t notified about this even though it will affect me.
Yes, we’ve been in touch with MapRA and it’s been in our newsletter too. Quite a few people in the MapRA area subscribe to the newsletter because it does cover events and issues from all over Cricklewood, and it’s free. See Newsletter on the menu here to look at previous newsletters and sign up.
I absolutely oppose this development. The area is already a pollution blackspot with heavy HVG usage. It is far too residential to be appropriate for industrial aggregate processing and will have a detrimental affect on health, particularly the health of children and the elderly. Once again, councils are riding roughshod over local people , putting profit above safety.
I made a complaint to the council and they wanted to know how it affected me personally?
I am horrified by this proposal and I have objected. This area needs HGVs, increased traffic congestion, and even more polluted air like a hole in the head. There are too many residents who would be effected by this’s please keep campaigning against it.
This area needs more green spaces, youth clubs and not roads and train tracks and more traffic. I strongly oppose this foolish plan!
This area needs more green spaces, youth clubs and not roads and train tracks and more traffic. I strongly oppose this foolish plan!